


Mechanical Eyes Can't Cry

by DaisyFairy



Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Accidents, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Medical Trauma, Recovery, Scared Techie, Suicide Attempt, injured matt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 12:17:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyFairy/pseuds/DaisyFairy
Summary: I have been introduced to the Techie/Matt ship by 221b_hound and AtlinMerrick, and then this happened (sorry for the angst).Matt is working in the hanger when one of the space craft falls and lands on him. His boyfriend Techie witnesses the accident and fears that Matt is dead.





	Mechanical Eyes Can't Cry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/gifts), [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Found Objects](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7721773) by [221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound). 
  * Inspired by [Found Objects](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7721773) by [221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound). 



> This story is vaguely set in the universe of the [Techienician: Botanical Love](http://archiveofourown.org/series/526645) series by 221b_hound. I highly recommend the series, and this may make more sense if you have read that.
> 
> For information about who these men are please [check this link](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/146854302379/clan-techie-matt-the-radar-techician).
> 
>  
> 
> What you really need to know is that Matt works on The Finalizer in the Emperor's fleet as a Radar technician. 
> 
> A few years ago Techie escaped from the Crime Clan, headed by Ma-ma. He was kept by the Clan basically as a prisoner and used as a slave to fix their computer systems. Whilst he was with the Clan he was forced to have his eyes replaced with mechanical prosthetics so that he would be more useful to them. 
> 
> On his escape Techie came to live in the Empire and work on the Finalizer. The two men found each other and fell in love.

Techie has just arrived at the hanger to visit Matt for lunch. It has been a hard day, visiting technicians from another base making jibes about him being mecha, with jokes about his eyes, but it is all better as he sees his love across the room closing up a panel he has been working on and gathering his tools. Mattie is pulling an extra shift as a favour for his supervisor Leslee, fixing a large hydraulic lifting platform that is holding an X-Wing fighter awaiting repair metres above his head. Techie smiles and raises a hand to catch Mattie's attention, and drops it in horror.

One of the hydraulic struts is bending, creaking, groaning, snapping, the whole lift shudders, a warning cry gets stuck in his throat as the fighter craft tips and drops. The platform, the hydraulic mechanism, the whole space craft, all landing directly on his Matt, who had been looking around concerned about where that awful noise was coming from. It felt like hours watching the disaster unfold, but really can't have taken more than two seconds.

Someone is screaming. Techie drops to his knees and realises that the someone is him. But realising a thing is not the same as controlling a thing, so he continues to scream until there is no air left in his lungs and he can barely drag a breath in through his ragged throat. His eyes are burning, and his head aches with tears that he cannot shed. He stares as Leslee, Jex and Parvinak rush around trying to get to Mattie. Techie can't move, Mattie, his love, is dead. There is no way he could survive under the tonnes of metal and plastic that have landed on him.

He looks on feeling lightheaded with lack of oxygen and his screams turn to sobs when a pool of dark red seeps out from underneath the wreckage. He feels numb. Just staring at the sight before him. Everyone rushing around, shouting instructions, calling over the comms for help, he can see their mouths moving but can't hear a word. His life is over.

He stands slowly and raggedly draws a huge gasp of air in. He has never wanted to cry more. He knows what he needs to do. He has a plan. He had never told Mattie, but he has a plan for when he would be alone again.

Mattie told him, over and over, that they were forever, that he would never leave, he would whisper to him in their bed, calling him his Little Mus and telling stories of how they would be old wrinkly together. Techie looks at the betrothal bangles at his wrist and bites his lip. He had believed his Matt, the only person he could ever believe about that kind of thing. His Mattie would never have left him, would never have run off with someone else. But still, he had known that those stories would not come true, because everyone leaves. Not on purpose, but he knew something would happen to drag them apart.

A huge lifting vehicle has been brought to lift the craft off of the crushed body underneath. Techie turns away. He doesn't want to see the mess of bone and blood that will be revealed. That is not his love, he doesn't want to see him like that. He stares at the wall, working up courage to carry out his plan.

He thinks back to when he was with the Crime Clan and how not everyone had been cruel. There was the guard who when instructed to whip him 10 times for getting in Ma-ma’s way had given him three lashes while Ma-ma watched then stopped when she left having bored of the spectacle. He had whipped the wall instead to sound as if he was complying, and Techie had made the appropriate screaming sounds (past experience telling him exactly how desperate to sound and that towards the last few lashes he should become quieter as if his strength had given out). Then the guard had left, just as he would if he had fulfilled Ma-ma’s orders. Techie had wanted to talk to him, ask why he had risked punishment himself, but he never got the chance. 

Another time Techie had been sleeping under a console, he should have been fixing it but weariness had overtaken him after working for almost 20 hours straight. The same guard had entered the room first, preceding Ma-ma and the rest of her entourage. He had shaken Techie awake saying only "She's coming." then moving to his usual console to get his reports. 

Seconds later when Ma-ma had entered Techie had been working away, checking the wires for connections and she had been none the wiser. Of course she had still insulted him and complained that he was making her command centre look untidy, but he had been spared the wrath that she would have displayed had he been caught sleeping on the job. So this man had been a friend, well the closest he had, but he had been sent away. Some other outpost somewhere. Techie had no way of finding out where or why, and daren't ask for fear of exposing the kindness he had been shown. So life went back to being a series of terrifying, painful and boring days with no one to help him survive.

Then there was the canteen worker who occasionally gave him extra portions behind the guards backs after Ma-ma had starved him for a few days. The starvation was always meant to be a punishment for some infraction or other, but Techie had a feeling that Ma-ma just enjoyed watching him suffer. 

Techie would smile gratefully at her but never otherwise acknowledge the extra food, to do so was too dangerous for both of them. He had been happy that someone cared, someone thought that the punishments were too harsh, until one day a stray blast from one of the guards chasing a rebel went straight into the woman’s temple, and that was that.

So, now that Mattie has left him too, it is time for his plan, his plan to override all of the airlock safeguards and get sucked into space. Quick and if not painless at least he can look at the stars as he dies and think of the times he had gazed at them with Mattie. Then that would be the end. If some of the more traditional members of the crew were right he would go to the afterlife (of some variety, no two groups could seem to come to a consensus about this) and be with Matt. If not then there would just be oblivion, and an absence of the pain of his loss, and of the fear and loneliness that would be his constant companions if he didn't end it now. 

Of course Mattie hadn't known of the plan, he would have made him promise not to do it, to carry on and live his life if the worst happened, but Mattie would not have understood that he was his life, there is no living without him.

With every previous setback Techie had been able to do that, he had felt it was worth holding on, he'd never quite given up hope for a brighter future, where he would find family and a place to belong. Then he had found that, he had lived that future with his Matt, so now that that portion of his life is over he can not bear to go back to the isolation he had before. There is no possible future that he wants to inhabit without Mattie by his side, no holding on for things to get better, there is no 'better' than what he has just lost.

There is a lot of shouting behind him, they must have succeeded in lifting the space craft. He automatically turns towards the sounds, but stops himself before he sees. Setting his shoulders he walks determinedly towards the door. 

He strides quickly away from the hanger, he must do this now, if anyone realises his plan they will stop him. He knows from his trial run that once he gets to the airlock it will take 96 seconds to override the controls that normally do not allow the outer door to open without twin codes from inside the airlock and a second operator in the corridor outside, presumably to prevent people doing exactly what Techie is planning. He will also override the system that would normally pump all of the air out of the airlock chamber before the outer door opens. He doesn't want to slowly suffocate sitting in that small metal room as the air gets thinner, he wants the sudden rush as he is sucked out into space with explosive force with the air, to see the stars from outside just like his Mattie used to do when he went out to fix the arrays. Then that will be it.

He is just turning into the short dead-ended corridor to the airlock when someone stands in his way, he tries to brush past them but they move to block his path. He can vaguely hear them shouting at him, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters. He tries to push them, to get away from the horror in the room he just left, but they won't be moved. 

He forces himself to look. It is Leslee, Matt's supervisor. He snarls, this is her fault, Mattie shouldn’t have been working that shift, and doesn’t normally even work in the hanger, and she is responsible for the accident. He doesn't know how, doesn't know what caused the fault, but she is to blame, and now she is stopping him from doing the only thing he has left. 

He tries again, shoving her hard, but even with his anger he is not strong enough to move this woman who could almost rival his love for size. Instead she slaps him across the cheek, the stinging blow not enough to knock him from his feet, but just enough to bring him back to himself a little, enough to hear her voice.

"He's alive! He's alive! You need to come to the med bay."

Techie shakes his head "I saw. The blood. He can't."

"Please come. He's alive."

In a daze he follows her to the med bay. There he is, on one of the adjustable beds, surrounded by medbots, nurses and doctors. Techie can barely see him in-between the people fighting to save his life, just glimpses of his head and flashes of skin as his clothing is cut away. The harsh brightness of the clinical lights is making his already pale skin take on a grey pallor, or perhaps that is the blood loss. There are bright crimson streaks across his face and darker red where his hair is soaked in it. His eyes are closed and a breathing mask is put over his mouth. 

Techie stands there numb, he had been so certain, so sure that Matt was dead, that this feels like a dream. Perhaps he is hallucinating, unable to stand the reality of Matt being gone.

He gasps when the nurses move back and he sees Matt properly for the first time, naked but for a small blanket covering his groin. He is covered in sensors, tubes and wires are attached to him, one tube snaking under the blanket and terminating in a bag hanging on the bed side. Techie does not understand what those things are for, he knows computers, but medicine is not a subject that he had ever had opportunity to study apart from where it pertained to his mechanical eyes. The thing that made him gasp though, that made him sure this was reality and not a hallucination, was his poor Mattie's left arm. Bloodied and bruised, the forearm looks like it is snapped completely in two, the lower arm jutting off at an angle that, well, that should not be possible, and the upper arm looks like it has been crushed flat. His imagination would never depict Matt in this way.

The rest of Matt's body has purple and black bruises blooming all over it, his ribs look almost caved in in places. Techie can hear a wheezing sound as air is pushed and pulled in and out of lungs that are in all likelihood punctured. Techie just stands and stares as more doctors (the same ones? He has no idea) come and surround his love again. Someone tries to talk to him. The only word he can make out is "Surgery" and he nods. Seconds later Matt's bed is being rolled out of the room, he goes to follow, not wanting to be separated from him, but Leslee appears by his side and holds him back. Instead she leads him to a seating area and fetches a cup of something warm. He has no idea what it was, he drinks mechanically when the mug was placed in his hand without tasting the contents at all.

Suddenly a thought hits him, and it is all consuming, it seems like the most important thing. He mumbles "Where are Matt's glasses?" then looks at Leslee and shouts "Where are they, where are Matt's glasses? He can't see. He can't see without them."

"I think they got broken," She replies carefully "does he have any other pairs?"

Techie replies quickly "Yes. He needs them. He can't see."

"OK. We can get them later."

"Now! Now! Matt can't see, he'll wake up and he won't be able to see." He is beginning to sound frantic "He'll be so scared. He won't know where he is. He needs to see."

Leslee calmly crouches in front of him and takes his hands. "Lets go and get the glasses now then. But he won't be scared. I'm sure you can be there when he wakes up. It'll be ok."

"He is going to wake up, isn't he?" He says, sounding terribly unsure.

With her heart breaking and secretly making a V symbol behind her back with her fingers in the way she did as a child when lying so that it isn't _really_ lying she says calmly "Of course he is. He'll be fine. It'll all be fine, let’s go."

They dash to the quarters that Matt and Techie share, Leslee barely able to keep up with Techie as he runs full pelt to do the only thing he can to help his love. Techie starts throwing things around the room, searching desperately for the spare glasses that were RIGHT THERE this morning, while Leslee just stands helplessly in the doorway. He curses and gradually the throwing becomes less about searching and more about destroying things that are in his way, that are stopping him from getting back to the centre of his world. 

He collapses to his knees and starts to keen, he doesn’t know what to do, he had a plan for if Mattie was gone, but this agony of waiting he can't stand. Leslee blinks away a few tears from her eyes and kneels behind him wrapping her arms around him and cradles him until the sounds he is making settle to a soft whimper. 

Techie curls in a ball on the floor surrounded by the detritus of his tantrum while Leslee searches calmly, only a few minutes later finding the spare glasses on the counter in the ‘fresher. When she shows him the glasses he grabs them and is up in an instant, running back to Matt, leaving Leslee to secure the door to their quarters.  
\-----  
When he gets back to the medbay he tries to push past the nurse, he needs to get to Matt, to give him the glasses, to give him his sight. Techie knows only too well the horror of waking up in a medical facility blind and helpless, that must never be allowed to happen to Mattie. The nurse will not let him pass, Techie can barely hear what he is saying, the sound of his own thoughts is far too loud for that, but he can't get through. 

Techie starts shouting, what he is saying barely makes any sense but the theme, the gist of the thing, is terribly clear, he NEEDS to go in there, to be with Matt. The nurse is too strong, pushing Techie back firmly and he is just about to launch a punch at the man blocking his way when Leslee is suddenly there. She is holding him back, and is so strong he can barely struggle against her, but the soothing words she is mumbling to him gradually filter in to his brain and he stops, standing sobbing tearlessly in her arms. Apologising to the nurse she firmly leads him away to the waiting area, and makes him sit.

The waiting is agony, he wants to help, he wants to know what is happening. Sitting staring sightlessly at the glasses in his hands and biting his lip until it bleeds, Techie waits. Leslee fetches drinks a few times which he takes automatically, and tries to get him to eat but his stomach roils at the thought so he refuses. Eventually after what must be at least five years a doctor emerges and, whilst Techie holds his breath, says many things that can't penetrate the fog in his mind, and one word that does – “Alive”.

The next few minutes are a blur, but the next thing he knows he is sitting next to Matt’s bed. He is covered with a blanket but the parts of him that can be seen are mostly covered in mottled bruises ranging from red to blues and even black's in a few places. His blond hair is lank and dark in places where it still has blood in it, some of it has been shaved off and a bandage covers the wound to his scalp. There are monitors beeping and wires and tubes, but in the middle is Mattie. Breathing on his own and alive.

He daren’t touch, Mattie is normally so big and strong, but in that bed he looks tiny and fragile, and Techie is afraid of hurting him. Matt stirs and Techie is on his feet in an instant, moving closer, so close, his hand hovers but doesn’t touch Mattie’s cheek. Then blue eyes open, and even though they are bloodshot and swollen they search and Techie can see his love squinting to try to focus, he gently settles the glasses onto Mattie's nose and is greeted by a small smile when Matt’s eyes finally focus on him.

“Wh…” Matt starts, and breaks off into a painful, wheezing coughing fit.

Techie can't resist any more, he caresses Matt’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “Don’t talk. There was an accident. You…I thought you'd died.” He bites his tongue to stop the words from spilling out, of the terrible thing he had almost done, he had almost left Mattie alone to face this, if Leslee hadn’t found him so quickly he would have, and then Matt would have no one to help him get better. It would be Matt grieving for him as he tried to deal with the pain of his injuries by himself. The reality of it hits and Techie collapses into the chair. “I thought you were dead.” He repeats vaguely, mumbling at the floor.

Matt gives a soft if slightly pained smile. “I don’t _think_ I'm dead.” He mumbles through swollen lips.

Techie chuckles through a sob, “I love you so much.”

“Love you too.”

And it is then that Mattie lifts his arm from under the covers to reach for his Techie, and they both realise that the arm that lifts was not the arm that wrapped itself around Techies waist the night before in their bed. This arm is made of steel and plastic, looks like something a droid would have. Techie frantically searches his memory and realises the doctor had said something about an arm, but he had been too preoccupied with the word ‘alive’ to notice.

Techie holds his breath while Mattie twists the arm experimentally to look at every angle and watches his love blink away a few tears. Then Mattie then lifts his chin to meet Techies mech eyes and smiles a wet and wavery smile.

“I guess we're both part mecha now then.” He whispers, but even still can't keep a slight quaver from his voice.

“D…does it hurt?”

Mattie shakes his head and frowns, “Can't really feel it at all.” Then the tears fall, and Techie hugs him fiercely, then gentle when Matt squeaks in pain and Mattie will have to do the crying for both of them but Techie’s breath hitches just the same.

 ---~~---

Five weeks later Techie stands to greet Mattie when he saunters into the quarters they share, with his blond hair sticking up in the patches where it is slowly regrowing. Matt proudly deposits a handful of credits into their savings jar with a broad grin.

“Where did that come from?” Techie asks with a small frown.

Matt smirks, “Leslee bet me I couldn’t tie a knot in a Hanava fruit stem with my tongue.”

Techie laughs, for he knows full well how talented his Mattie's tongue can be.

Looking suddenly serious Mattie says “I found a problem with the air lock control systems today. Seems that there was a loophole in the software, someone could rig them for single man operation, and to open the outer door before all of the air had been evacuated.”

Techie feels a little dizzy, feels the blood drain from his already pale face.

“I fixed it though, so there won't be any accidents. Any attempt to circumvent it will make the whole airlock seize up until a repair crew come and reinitialise it.”

Techie slumps down onto the bed.

“Not that anyone on this ship ever, _ever_ , needs to be trying something like that in the first place.”

“Umm”

Mattie sits next to him and pulls him in for a hug. “Do they?”

“Maybe if..if..maybe they would.”

Matt shakes his head sadly, “No they don't, because life is too precious to waste like that.” He pauses and takes a deep breath, his voice breaks a little as he continues, “You are too precious to waste like that. If the worst happens I need to know that you will carry on and find happiness again.”

Techie looks down at the ground, unable to meet Matt’s eyes.

“Please, promise me?”

He doesn’t want to, but he can't deny Matt anything, he nods, then slowly whispers, “I'll try.”

He is suddenly swept off the bed and swung around while Matt laughs and buries his face in his hair, kissing and nuzzling.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing can take me away from you, even dropping a whole spaceship on me couldn’t do it.”

Techie finds himself giggling as he hangs in his love’s arms with his feet dangling in the air. They have discovered in the few weeks since the accident that having a mech arm does have a few advantages, one of which is to make Mattie even stronger than he used to be, and, Techie blushes to think about it, having fingers that will not cramp or tire whatever Matt does with them, or for how long has been another bonus.

He looks at the jar, they have a long way to go, but they will get there. One day they will have enough money for an organo-synth arm for Mattie, and Techie has promised that when that day comes he will take the doctors up on their offer of an upgrade for his own eyes, even though the thought of a surgery where they takes his eyes out is terrifying. 

But for now, Mattie has that glint in his eye, and Techie is helpless to escape his grasp, and isn’t _that_ an exciting thought. So as Mattie carries him to the bed Techie thinks that maybe, if his world did crumble, memories like this might be enough to live on. And then Mattie throws him onto the mattress, growls and pounces and Techie shrieks in glee and _knows_ that it could be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope all my Sherlock friends haven't minded this departure from my normal fandom. I promise I'll be back to writing Sherlock very soon.
> 
> Kudos and comments would be much appreciated.


End file.
